we miss leo k
Joined: Feb. 2018
Posts: 5,993
Likes: 5,123
I don't hate Chych but I don't think I make that trade if I'm in charge of the Islanders.
Going into next season NYI have $6.875M in cap space available with 9 F / 6 D / 2 G under contract - swapping JGP out for Chych (plus the $1M retention) knocks them down to $6.275M in space with 8 F / 7 D / 2 G. I'd also say that since they already have Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, Noah Dobson, and Alex Romanov under contract for next year (plus 6x$3.5M left on Scott Mayfield's deal), there really isn't a glaring need that Chychrun fills here - they already have a fairly solid (and costly) defense, so spending a 1st rounder and eating some cap to basically make the 3rd pair better feels like a bad allocation of resources to me.